


all we shall know for truth

by Ark



Category: Les Misérables (2012), Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: 1830s, Canon Era, M/M, Sorry J.K. Rowling Not Sorry, Surviving The Barricades, Wizards
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-16
Updated: 2013-11-16
Packaged: 2018-01-01 17:32:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1046595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ark/pseuds/Ark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire gets up at last. He dusts at his green vest that is dark with grime. His face is serious as he says, “I am a wizard, Enjolras."</p>
            </blockquote>





	all we shall know for truth

**Author's Note:**

> WINE comes in at the mouth  
> And love comes in at the eye;  
> That's all we shall know for truth  
> Before we grow old and die.  
> I lift the glass to my mouth,  
> I look at you, and sigh.
> 
> ― W.B. Yeats

The guns go off but Enjolras has Grantaire’s hand and they are going up, up, the world is twisting, they are being carried away. Perhaps death feels like this, but death does not look like where they land, a narrow, crooked street like any in Paris, with rats that flee their sudden appearance. They are gasping on their hands and knees, but they are breathing, alive, and there are no soldiers in sight.

Enjolras lets go of Grantaire’s hand, feeling stunned and also as though his stomach is being worn on the outside. He presses a hand there to check, then says, “Grantaire -- what -- how --”

“Are you in one piece?” A cough racks Grantaire’s body; it takes him a long while to get to his feet. “I didn’t know if I was strong enough. Haven’t tried anything like that since school --” He’s talking to himself, only half-addressing Enjolras, looking pale and wan, with blood on his clothes and shoes and in his hair. “No limbs left behind?”

“I don’t understand,” says Enjolras. “We were in the Musain, facing guns. Now we are -- does that sign say _Versailles_?” 

Grantaire nods, looking miserable. “There are known portkeys in the palace that can take us far from here. It was a last, desperate act. I never thought we’d make it.”

The first part of the statement is nonsensical, even for Grantaire, so Enjolras focuses on the latter half. “What did you _do_? It’s not possible--”

“It’s magic, Enjolras. ‘Possible’ is a Muggle term of recent invention. ‘Invention’ is also Muggle.” Grantaire pinches two fingers to the bridge of his nose, as though trying to relieve a great pressure. “I don’t expect you to believe me when I can hardly believe myself. They told me when they took my wand that I would be unable to cast spells of such complexity again. I should never have been able to Aparate, let alone Aparate you with me. If I knew myself capable, I would have used magic to save our friends, and changed the outcome of this terrible affair.”

“You are mad,” says Enjolras, but the declaration makes him pull his hair. “I am mad, for we have come across miles in the blink of an eye, and madness is the only explanation.”

“Another Muggle word, ‘explanation’--”

_“Grantaire.”_

Grantaire gets up at last. He dusts at his green vest that is dark with grime. His face is serious as he says, “I am a wizard, Enjolras. There is another world here your eyes have not seen; I was raised in that one, where magic is as real as bread, and as ordinary. Like any world it has its share of problems, and I grew sick of it, and it of me. There was an incident at school that forced me to surrender my wand; thereafter I swore off magic and found it a great relief. I never thought to work it again, until today. I did not think it would work at all.”

“If you can command the elements,” says Enjolras, bitterly, “Take us back and let us redo this wretched day.”

Grantaire’s face is all sorrow. “Time is dangerous, even for the finest wizards,” he says. “A graybeard master could not do as you ask, nor would he try. I would try,” and Enjolras can see there are tears in Grantaire’s eyes, blinking loose, “But I have no wand, and I fear I could not light your pipe for you, if you smoked.”

“What can you do? If you are not mad, prove it.”

“I told you, I do not have my--”

“We are in _Versailles,_ Grantaire!”

“As you say.” Grantaire rolls up his shirtcuffs, looking uncertain. “Are you -- are you absolutely sure?”

“That you are not a Merlin-like figure out of mist and legend? Yes.” Enjolras waves his arms, magnanimous. “I invite you to convince me other--”

Where Grantaire had been standing there is now a shaggy brown fox. The fox gazes calmly at Enjolras, then lifts a paw in a gesture that somehow extraordinarily sees to transmit, _I tried to tell you._ The fox looks young, with unbrushed fur that could be sleek. The fox is in Grantaire’s clothes.

“--wise.” Enjolras reels back. He blinks once, twice, again -- and it is Grantaire beside him in the alley. Enjolras is pressed against the wall, breathing hard. “Jesus Christ!”

“A wizard of some renown.” Grantaire tries to sound droll instead of panicked. “Do you believe me now?”

Enjolras can do more than open his mouth and close it. Grantaire sighs; when Enjolras doesn’t resist, he takes his arm and leads him from the alleyway, following some internal sense of direction that has them crossing the town of Versailles with quick efficiency. All main roads lead to the palace, where Grantaire, in the maddest idea of all, is headed. Where they are headed.

Dazed, Enjolras trails after him, lets himself be tugged on. He finds that his voice still works. “Can you turn into any sort of creature?”

Grantaire tilts him a cautious, measuring look before answering. “No. Just the one.”

“So what you’re saying is that there are scores of people with your strange abilities, who might have infiltrated our operations, and those throughout all of history. Spies, climbing through windows as cats or spiders, actual sorcerers using magic to pry --”

“Most wizards don’t care much for Muggle affairs,” says Grantaire. “And I haven’t heard of any animagi taking the form of a spider. Spiders are sensitive about their territory. I wouldn’t want to run into one without knowing the proper passwords.” He shrugs, as though this is perfectly commonplace knowledge, then pauses before saying, more carefully, “But yes, it has been known to happen throughout history. Some wizards are mischief-makers; more damningly, others are too bored, and take to meddling with Muggles. Certainly there are wizards who have abused their powers and transgressed. It’s why we have so many laws governing the usage of magic, and our own police and courts and prisons; and we have our dictators and our rebels too.”

Enjolras listens, fascinated despite his misgivings. Grantaire sounds entirely matter-of-fact, and speaks now with ease as they stroll the road to the palace, a long avenue bordered by tall trees and manicured grass. 

After what Enjolras has felt and seen, evidence would indicate that Grantaire is not lying; and yet it still seems more plausible to think that maybe he has been poisoned, or drugged, or rendered unconscious, and all of this a hallucination. The summer air is hot and weighs heavily; by unspoken accord they walk quickly, as though pursued. It does not feel like a dream.

At least the unfathomable things Grantaire is saying and doing ( _a fox_ ) give Enjolras topics to think about beyond the ruins of his rebellion and his universe and the morgue that was made of the Musain. The men who lie there now, his most beloved friends and brothers, their voices silenced forever --

Grantaire catches Enjolras’ elbow and keeps him steady as he stumbles over a twisting tree-root, and they are in the shadow of the tree when a carriage bolts past on the main road flanked by horsemen with muskets. Soldiers. Their feathers wave in the wind, and then they are past.

Enjolras is quietly, desperately sick on the grass, and Grantaire holds back his hair through it, and touches his shoulder during the choking sobs that follow thereafter.

With some grief expelled, Enjolras lets himself be put back into motion, puts one numb foot in front of another. “You lead us to another execution,” he tells Grantaire, not exactly minding. “Would you have us storm Versailles?”

“Don’t pretend that the idea does not delight you.” Grantaire considers the blaze of light that is the palace in the distance, flanked by its fields and gardens like a maiden with voluminous skirts. “There are other ways in, if we use my ways.”

“I thought you could not use --” Enjolras makes a gesture with his wrist. He cannot believe he’s saying it. “Magic. Your _magic._ ”

“I said it wasn’t supposed to work,” says Grantaire. “Though now that you mention it, you’re right, and I suppose I’m in a good deal of trouble for revealing myself as a wizard before a garrison of Muggles, and, erm, making two wanted criminals vanish into thin air.” He presses his lips together until they show white at the edges. “By now they will have sent a crew from the Committee of Magical Safety, and cleaned it up. But they will not be happy with me.”

“What will happen?” asks Enjolras, who still cannot quite believe. 

“Imprisonment is possible,” considers Grantaire, walking at a clip now, and Enjolras doesn’t miss the glance over his shoulder at the dark road behind. “Certainly there will be punishment, though I may be somewhat excused for extraordinary circumstances. No wizarding court would deny that we faced death without fair process.”

Enjolras flinches, for the death was of his making. It was intended for him. “You should have left me there.”

“I know,” says Grantaire. “I meant to stay as well. I had made peace with it. But then you accepted my hand, and smiled at me, and then--”

“We were in Versailles,” says Enjolras. He tilts his head. “You did not cast a spell?”

“Not consciously,” says Grantaire. “Perhaps I made a wish.” 

Grantaire is silent a moment, and both pick up the pace of their stride. The palace wheels closer. “Magics of life and death are the most potent force on earth. It may be that I was fueled to perform a feat otherwise beyond the bounds of my capacity. I know I could not repeat it now.” His chin is up. “But I can transform. No school or authority could take being an animagus from me. I learned that skill myself, without instruction, out of necessity; it is in my bones. I will find the hidden ways inside in that form. There are passages that are known only to wizarding lore,” he says, managing to small grin for Enjolras. “You’re right, we’ve always meddled. Take Marie Antoinette’s lady-mother Maria Theresa, for example. She was, of course, a very famous witch; she had a series of passages built to access Versailles, that her agents might penetrate at will. Tonight we thank the Empress.”

Enjolras frowns and raises an eyebrow at the same time and Grantaire laughs without mirth. Enjolras says, “Where will we go?”

“Wherever the first portkey goes,” answers Grantaire. “I know not, only that several are displayed amongst the royal spoils.” At Enjolras’ blank look he says, “It is an...ensorcelled object that will take us somewhere else, rather as I got us here. We will not know until we arrive.”

Enjolras balks. The concept is absurd; the outcome, should such a thing exist, preposterous. “You mean to run--”

“I must,” says Grantaire. “There are eras when our magical courts have been enlightened ones; but wizards are men too, and their hearts are petty. The men who rule in my jurisdiction are as vengeful as the ones here, and their punishments are crueller. As it stands now, I fear I am more of a revolutionary in my own world than in yours, Enjolras, and I must put distance between here and there.” He puts his hands in his pockets, and Enjolras gets the distinct sense that Grantaire is reaching for something that is no longer present, but should be. “The more I think on it the more pressing it seems. The authorities that hunted you are baffled, and now have their minds wiped clean; the ones that look for me have purpose, and great power.”

None of it makes sense; it’s like tipping from a nightmare into a deranged fairy tale, like the old ones, where magic is real and harsh as it is beautiful. 

Enjolras stops them on the road. “I’ll go with you, of course,” he says. “Should I live in a graveyard?”

Grantaire’s eyes are the color of the sea storm-tossed. “We will go to a far-off place,” he promises.

Then he seems gripped with hesitation. “If I might -- can I -- I’ve a thought --” mid-sentence, Grantaire extends a hand, palm-up, and on reflex Enjolras takes it. 

There is a feeling of warmth and welcome, and sparks that are red and green and golden. They show behind Enjolras’ eyes, and Grantaire’s too, from how wide Grantaire’s eyes are.

They hold together like that, sparking, until Grantaire lets go. “Ah,” he says.

“What?” demands Enjolras, eyeballing his fingers, flexing them.

“I was right,” says Grantaire. “You are bewitching, Enjolras.”

Enjolras opens his mouth to protest, but Grantaire says, “I’ve suspected as much for as long as I’ve known you. One of your parents is a witch, or a wizard, or one of your ancestors was; or somewhere down the line you are pure Veela. It is not --” he stops, starts again, restarts, “it is not uncommon that a potential wizard like you would go untaught. We have certain stringent laws about bloodlines and Beauxbatons.” Grantaire sounds almost unbearably sour. “The fact remains that you possess an immense amount of magical potential, and it is probably what got us here. The desperation of two wizards, on the edge of death, one of them raw and untrained--”

Now Enjolras scoffs. “Mad enough that I’m following you in this. You’d cast me in your fables?”

“You know it to be true,” says Grantaire, as they approach an endless stretch of high black gate. “How many times has something happened because you have requested it? How many men have changed their minds at your bidding? How many have you directed, and had them spin to attention, like pawns on a board?”

Enjolras listens with creeping dread. “Persuasion isn’t--”

“You’ve been using magic all your life, unaware of it. It’s that way with most. You should know that there’s momentum to allow those like you, from mixed heritage, to join us; but it is a slow-gathering tide.” Grantaire is downcast; his boots are heavy on the road. “You’ll be excused, Enjolras, if you stay here. They’ll clear your mind same as the others, and you can go back to school, and find another club.”

“And if we go through your portkey?” asks Enjolras.

“We will be on our own,” says Grantaire.

Enjolras nods. “Lead on.”

“'Lay on, Macduff, and damned be he who first cries hold, enough,'” mutters Grantaire, turning into a fox. "Wait for me,” says the fox, or Grantaire. Then Enjolras is alone.

Alone, he has a solitary time of introspection, of silent screaming, of scouring, of self-audit. Grantaire’s words ring true; Enjolras cannot deny that all his life he has held an undue influence when pushed, and if he noticed strange events he dismissed them. Objects snapping into his grasp before he reached. Animals subdued with a glance. The ability to hold an audience captive, riveted on his delivery. Has he made men love him through magic?

Grantaire would know, but Grantaire is not back for a long while, while Enjolras paces. He thinks about the last moments they meant to share. Grantaire bravely crossed the upstairs room, staked himself for Enjolras’ cause without reserve. Offered apology and a request for redemption at the end, and Enjolras was glad to give him it. 

He smiled at Grantaire, and in their last moment let Grantaire see what was behind his eyes. He was so pleased, content that it was ending thus, and Grantaire deserved to hear the words Enjolras’ lips made, the whisper that said, “Now I know why,” _why I think of you, why I desire you, why I spurn you, why I want --_ when Grantaire asked, “Do you permit it?” and Enjolras thought they were about to die

and then they were on their knees in an alley in Versailles.

There is a howl in the dark that sounds distinctly foxlike, and Enjolras’ head snaps up. He looks across the wooded horizon, cut by the splendor of the palace beyond, and can see nothing. 

Then a shape bursts free from a burrow in the wall nearby, streaking past. It is a fox, with something in its mouth; then, as it comes to a shuddering stop, it is Grantaire, with something in his mouth. A heartbeat later the sound of baying dogs erupts from the gardens.

Grantaire is naked and covered in mud, and he’s unstringing a necklace heavy-set with sapphires from his teeth. After a good bit of staring at this apparition, Enjolras offers his jacket, and then, solicitously, the red flag he held on to when they were torn across a great distance. Grantaire wraps himself in both, with thanks. The flag knots across his hips.

“You were supposed to find a way for me to come in --”

“I revised, as necessary. There are many soldiers afoot; the actions in the capital have excited the security here, and you would have been easily caught. I slipped inside, and discovered a passageway, and was able to locate what I sought.” Grantaire frowns down at the bauble. “I do not know where it goes. It could be as far away as Lille, or even Calais; or it is a portal to a drafty castle in England -- some unfortunate lovers had this necklace. Or else we’ll be at the edge of the Dead Sea, near Jerusalem, or perhaps the wind-swept plains of America, or wherever the nose of the Sphinx is. What if we are brought to an island, Enjolras, with none there but you and I?”

“I cannot know until we arrive. Do what you must, and let us depart.”

“It requires only that you hold one end, as you held on to me before.” Grantaire undoes the fine golden clasp. His artist’s hands are trembling.

Enjolras regards him. “You have told me nothing of what you flee, or why. You say they stripped you of your powers at a young age, and you are a notorious exile. Tell me what fight I join by joining you, Grantaire.”

Grantaire’s muddy, lovely face is plaintive. “I thought you did not believe me.”

“I’m about to seize a piece of enchanted jewelry with the intent that it transport me across the globe,” Enjolras points out. “I have at least submitted to the precepts of the hallucination.” But it is said lightly, and Grantaire can hear, beneath, that they they are on a level, that Enjolras has accepted the new rules of reality introduced to him. New rules -- and new ways to reshape them, to make things better, to fix what men and women, in their tyrannical ways, always break. Here is Grantaire, showing him that there is another way of life that wants for changing, while Enjolras’ old world lies crumbled and fallen.

Grantaire says quickly, “You need not certify it, only listen, if you would. At a young, idealistic age, I challenged the primary edict that governed my school; I thought I saw a better way, and was disagreed with.” For a moment he is removed, somewhere else; a classroom, an office, a courtroom. “It means nothing to you, if I speak of forging acceptance letters to Beauxbatons. Can that be so revolutionary? But I was tricky about it. I named wizards I knew who were not of the blood, and got the letters delivered to a new crop of students. Boys and girls I grew up with, who could work magic as well as I, and were denied entrance into our elite academy on account of nothing in particular. They account them muddled-bloods, impure.” 

Grantaire’s face twists with the distasteful idea. “They did not discover my forgeries for more than a year; and therein they faced a problem. The children of mixed-blooded wizards, those with one parent, or a relative removed, did just as well, or better, than the heirs of the anointed aristocracy. They uncovered my crime,” grits Grantaire, “and their policies could not account for it. For here were some of the brightest new wizards of their age, unfairly damned for bloodlines.”

“It is reprehensible,” agrees Enjolras, though he knows not why it hurts as it does, like a knife slid in; Grantaire had said --

“You worked for people like me,” acknowledges Enjolras. Still, his throat closes on it: “Magically gifted. Yet not privileged enough to be admitted to your sorcerer’s school.”

“Yes.” Grantaire looks everywhere but at Enjolras’ level gaze, doesn’t engage it yet. “Would you believe it was all for you, if I said so?”

“Perhaps,” says Enjolras, who has somehow expected it. If magic is real, then much of what he was been willfully blind to must be reexamined. “Stranger things have happened today.”

Grantaire grins halfway, a quirk of his mouth. Then he lifts his ocean-blue eyes and the smile has vanished. “I never thought to say this part again. I did not want to tell it, at my hearing at the school, when they took my wand. They could not expel the students, who were innocent, and decided to let them stay; they are the first wave that will bring change in their wake. But I was expelled, and warned that I could not perform magic any longer, and cast out quite publicly. My name still evokes disdain in some circles. At the hearing they asked me why I did it, and I spoke a lively speech about the terrible snobbery of our admissions procedures, and how future generations would condemn our narrow-mindedness; it is all true; then they gave me truth serum, and I told them about you. I have seen you, a vision of you, in dreams since I was small; and I knew nothing, could do nothing in dreams, but see that you were a wizard denied your place beside me, somewhere in France. As such I set about to change the law, from the inside out at Beauxbatons; if candidates were evaluated for their magical potential instead of their family crest, as the first-years I forged were, I thought that eventually I would meet you.”

Of all the extraordinary things, Grantaire says this entirely grounded, with one hand on a clasp of gold, extending the faceted rope to Enjolras, and the other hand on his hip. "They damned me for a romantic fool, and a dangerous meddler, and since I would not go home, I went to Paris. By then I had dreamed that you were there, saw you walking the cobblestones."

“You lost your wand on my account,” repeats Enjolras, past incredulous now. 

“By association,” allows Grantaire. “I am proud of it; it is a rebellion I never spoke of over here, of course. Here it was good to find you, and know you real and worth the cost. I have watched you be alive with magic, and hoped it would guide you better, and thought how you would have thrived at my school, had they invited you.” His dark brows knit, pensive. “Perhaps if we turn ourselves in, they will be lenient on you, and give you some training, now that you know--”

“No,” says Enjolras, decided. “You will teach me, as we run.” He reaches for Grantaire’s free hand instead of the fingers curled tight around gemstones. He is not dosed with truth-serum but he speaks words he never thought to say aloud. “I saw you also. In dreams, from childhood. When you first came into the Musain I thought I must be asleep. That you were real made me question my sanity and much else besides. But the dreams never made sense. There was never any sense to them. Madness...”

“Magic,” says Grantaire, blinking back at him. “You will do great things with it, Enjolras. I have foreseen--”

“You’ve dreamt of the future also,” says Enjolras. “You’ve seen what we could be.”

Grantaire bites his lip. There are dreams whose contents are not fit for polite conversation. He flushes, then says, “Those are the nights whose mornings I curse.”

“We cannot know if they are true visions,” says Enjolras, but his hold tightens on Grantaire, and Grantaire’s hand holds fast.

“Shall we see?” asks Enjolras, grasping sapphires.


End file.
